Posts Tagged ‘Al Sharpton’

Jesus said, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Prosperity Preacher Joel Osteen lays his head down in great comfort in his $10,500,000 mansion in the richest neighborhood in America, River Oaks in Houston.

Paul the Apostle wrote: when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. Don’t you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me. I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of this boast. Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it. Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Paul worked as a tent maker to support himself, sometimes night and day, as he preached the Gospel.

King Solomon called himself “The Preacher.” He was the wisest and richest man who ever lived denying himself nothing and keeping scores of wives and concubines.

The Catholic Church’s global holdings including huge amounts of real estate, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Vatican City, and some of the world’s greatest art add up to immeasurable wealth.

I am writing this blog not to judge but to inform; keeping in mind that we are all sinners and fall short of the Kingdom of God without the way, the truth and the life.

Television has been a great multiplier allowing preachers to spread the Gospel to the masses. It has also proved to be a tool to obtain great wealth.

Jesus and Paul amassed no earthly wealth. Solomon and many other preachers are so wealthy they make Joel Osteen look like a pauper.

The founder of Modern Prosperity Theology, Bishop Edir Macedo of Brazil has a net worth estimated by Brazilian authorities at two billion dollars. He is continuously involved in scandals, mostly due to allegations that his organization had siphoned off billions of dollars of donations intended for charity. There have also been official charges of fraud and money laundering. Macedo even spent eleven days in jail in 1992 due to charges of charlatanism. He has denied all the accusations against him in Brazil, but he is still under prosecution by US authorities as well as Venezuelan authorities. Yet Macedo has managed to keep his flock of followers throughout the years.

Jesus rode on a donkey; Bishop Macedo owns a $45 million jet.

Jesus and Paul ran afoul with Roman and Jewish authorities but never for money laundering or taking money intended for charity. Their crime was preaching the gospel.

Bishop T. D Jakes enjoys a net worth of $150 million and resides in a $1,700,000 mansion. He has been called America’s best preacher and has been featured on the cover of TIME magazine. He is a writer, preacher and movie producer. Thomas Dexter Jakes, Sr. is the bishop and chief pastor of The Potter’s House, a non-denominational American mega church, with 30,000 members, located in Dallas, Texas. T.D Jakes wears custom made suits and sports a diamond ring the size of a coin.

Bishop David Oyedepo is a Nigerian Preacher, Christian Author, Founder and Presiding Bishop of Winners Chapel known as Living Faith Church World Wide. Has been hailed as the wealthiest preacher in Nigeria with a total net worth of $150 million and properties like 4 private jets and homes in the United States and England. After the foundation of the Living Faith Outreach Ministry in 1981, it has evolved to be one of the largest congregations in Africa and has a flourishing mission in Nairobi. This is just one of Bishop Oyendepo’s jets.

Bishop Oyedepo claims that in 1998 he was instructed by God to build a new base for the Commission to accommodate the increasing number of worshipers. This resulted in Bishop Oyedepo’s church’s acquisition of the initial 530-acre facility, known as Canaanland, which serves as his headquarters. It is the home of the 50,000-seat capacity auditorium, the ‘Faith Tabernacle’, which is reputed to be the largest church auditorium in the world. This was a feat also recorded by the Guinness Book of Records.

Canaanland campus also has for profit establishments operated by the church such as a bakery, a bottled water processing plant, a gas station, various restaurants and shopping stores, several residential houses that provide for the over 2,000 church employees, and guest houses. Four banks are also present on this Estate, three of which are branches of external commercial banks and one which is a community and micro-finance Bank and operated by the Church. The whole of Canaanland which includes a proposed 15,000 housing division known as Canaan City had increased to 17,000 acres as at 2012

It is not easy to figure out just how much some Bishops, Preachers or modern day Apostles are worth.

Kenneth Copeland runs Kenneth Copeland Ministries and was one of several televangelists whose finances were investigated from 2007 to 2011 by Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa. According to an article by the Associated Press that ran in 2008, “His ministry’s 1,500-acre campus, behind an iron gate a half-hour drive from Fort Worth includes a church, a private airstrip, a hangar for the ministry’s $17.5 million jet and other aircraft, and a $6 million church owned lakefront mansion. The article later added that while Copeland has not released up-to-date salary statements, the church disclosed in a property-tax exemption application that his wages were $364,577 twenty years ago; Copeland’s wife, Gloria, earned $292,593. It’s not clear whether those figures include other earnings, such as special offerings for guest preaching or book royalties. Here is the Copeland home:

As of 2012, Prosperity Theology Preacher Joel Osteen had amassed a fortune of $56,508,500 and lives in a $10,500,000 mansion in River Oaks. River Oaks is the wealthiest and most expensive community in Texas and occupies 1,100 acres in Houston. Strolling through River Oaks one might see a professional basketball player, the primary figure of the Enron scandal, a Saudi Arabian oil figure or maybe a preacher? Not bad for a young man with no college degree and only a brief stint at Oral Roberts University. Joel’s brother Paul is a surgeon with lots of education but after 17 years Paul moved back to Houston and works for Joel. Don’t cry for Joel, he is still a young man with time to make some real money. Here is Joel’s home and guest house:

Pat Robertson is an American businessman and Christian preacher. He attended college at Washington and Lee University, and then served in the Marine Corps. After attending Yale Law School, and failing to pass the bar exam, he chose to attend New York Theological Seminary. Four years after graduating, he launched the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia, and the network is now broadcast in 180 countries. In the late 80s, he ran for President, but was unsuccessful. He runs a number of large companies. Some estimates put his net worth at 1 billion. He lives on the top of a Virginia mountain, in a huge mansion with a private airstrip. He owns the Ice Capades, a small hotel, diamond mines, and until recently, International Family Entertainment, parent company of the Family Channel. This mountain top home is just one of many Robertson residents:

Israeli televangelist Toufik Benedictus “Benny” Hinn has an estimated net worth of $42 million. He is best known for his regular “Miracle Crusades” – revival meeting and faith healing summits that are usually held in large stadiums in major cities, which are later broadcast worldwide on his television program, “This Is Your Day”. The estimate of $42 million may be low for Benny who owns this Malibu mansion:

Chris Oyakhilome is the man behind Believers’ Loveworld Ministries, a.k.a Christ Embassy. Hard to estimate the net worth of this New Age Preacher but is possibly between $30 million and $50 million. The charismatic preacher was at the center of a $35 million money laundering case in which he was accused of siphoning funds from his church to foreign banks.

Creflo Dollar: American Bible teacher, pastor, and the founder of World Changers Church International has an estimated net worth of $27 million. As his name suggests, this preacher’s “manna” comes in form of the green buck. Here is Reverend Dollar’s Fayetteville, Georgia mansion under construction with an inset image of his jet.

Rick Warren is an American author and evangelical Christian pastor who has a net worth of $25 million dollars. Rick Warren founded his high school’s first Christian club and earned several degrees. He founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California; it is now the country’s eighth-largest church. Saddleback Church and Warren attracted national attention when they hosted Barack Obama and John McCain for the Civil Forum on The Presidency in 2008.

American evangelical Christian evangelist, William Franklin “Billy” Graham, Jr., has a net worth of $25 million. The Southern Baptist evangelist rose to celebrity status as his sermons started getting broadcast on radio and television. Graham was born on a dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina in 1918; he has conducted many evangelistic crusades since 1948. Billy is many people’s favorite preacher who had access to presidents and kings.

Becoming an evangelical preacher in Brazil is the dream of many young people across the country. Contrary to more traditional protestant churches that require their pastors to have at least a masters degree, the neo-Pentecostal churches such as the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God offer intensive courses to “create” pastors for as little as $350 for a few days of classes. It’s not only about money, the most talented young members of a pastor’s crew can earn up to $132,000 a year, but it is also about power.

Many Brazilian pastors have been given diplomatic passports in the past few years. Some, especially those who lead big churches, are courted by politicians at election time. I mentioned Modern Prosperity Theology Bishop Edir Macedo earlier in this post. Here are some of Brazil’s other Pastor Superstars:

Valdemiro Santiago is a former preacher within the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, he was reportedly expelled from the institution after some misunderstandings with its boss, of whom he was a protégé. That was enough for him to found his own church, the World Church of the Power of God, which has more than 900,000 followers and over 4,000 temples, many of which are adorned with images of him on billboards. He made headlines last year after reportedly spending $45 million for a private jet. Several Brazilian business magazines estimate his net worth at $220 million.

Silas Malafaia, the former leader of the Brazilian arm of the Assembly of God, Brazil’s biggest Pentecostal church. The most outspoken of his colleagues, Malafaia parted ways with the institution in the late 1990s to start his own spin-off denomination, the Assembly of God-Victory In Christ Church. Malafaia is also a prominent figure on Twitter, where he is followed by more than 440,000 users. In 2011, Malafaia–who’s worth an estimated $150 million according to several Brazilian business publications–launched a campaign called “The One Million Souls Club,” that aims to raise $500 million for his church in order to create a global television network that would be broadcast in 137 countries. Malafaia also owns one of the four biggest record companies in Brazil’s gospel segment, according to Billboard Brazil, and the country’s second largest gospel publishing company, Central Gospel, with sales of a reported $25 million per year.

Romildo Ribeiro Soares, simply known as R.R. Soares. As the founder of the International Church of the Grace of God, Soares is one of the most regular faces on Brazilian TV. Another former member of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, he is the brother-in-law of Macedo. The self-entitled “missionary” Soares is said to be the humblest among his peers. His private jet, a King Air 350, is worth a “modest” $5 million. Soares’ estimated net worth is $125 million.

Estevam Hernandes Filho and his wife, “Bishop” Sonia, oversee more than 1,000 churches in Brazil and abroad, including several in Florida. With a combined net worth estimated at $65 million, the couple made international headlines in 2007 when they were arrested in Miami, accused of carrying more than $56,000 in undeclared cash. Some of the money had been stuffed between the pages of their Bibles, according to U.S. customs agents who detained the couple at the Miami Airport. They were returned to Brazil a year later. They are also still under prosecution in Brazil for a number of other crimes.

Back in the U.S. American civil rights activist and Baptist Minister Jesse Jackson has an estimated net worth of $10 million.

Another civil rights activist, Baptist minister and radio show host, Al Sharpton has an estimated net worth of $5 million. He earned his net worth through radio and television. I didn’t know Reverend Sharpton had a radio show?

John Hagee was my mother’s favorite preacher when she died in 2000. He is a founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, a non-denominational Charismatic megachurch with more than 20,000 active members. He is also the chief executive officer of his non-profit corporation, Global Evangelism Television (GETV). Hagee is the President and CEO of John Hagee Ministries, which telecasts his national radio and television ministry carried in the United States on ten television networks, including 62 high-power stations aired to more than 150 million households. He is shown on networks around the globe, including Africa, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Hagee is the founder and National Chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel, incorporated on February 7, 2006. Hagee’s support for Israel has brought him death threats. He also speaks openly on religious beliefs regarding Islam, Catholicism, and homosexuality. I know of no other person with responsibilities approaching John Hagee’s with a net worth of only $5 million. If your retirement nest egg was that much and was invested in ten year US treasury notes, your income would be $114,000 a year.

John Hagee and well known Pastor and Author John Piper are not poor but both chose not to be fabulously wealthy. “”Out of the freedom from worry that God’s generosity provides comes an impulse toward simplicity rather than accumulation.” John Piper

Does it seem like everything our President does is carefully calculated to cause civil unrest and divide America?

During his administration our police have become militarized, military deserters have been celebrated, lawless illegal aliens have been given Residency ahead of those seeking legal immigration and the release of Terrorist Prisoners has become commonplace.

President Obama and many civil rights agitators whipped the people of Ferguson, Missouri into a frenzy before Obama called for peaceful demonstrations. Does that make sense to you, pour gasoline on a fire and ask it not to burn? Al Sharpton called for demonstrations in front of Federal Buildings in 25 cities regardless of the decision of the Grand Jury. That is how the agitators make a living.

Again, our President favors the lawless protesters over the small business owners and peaceful residents of Ferguson. People who, in spite of the largess of the American Taxpayers, hate America and our long standing traditions. He favors foreigners, legal and illegal, who flee to America because they don’t like their home countries and then demand that America change to be like their home countries. They came here, we didn’t go to their countries.

Using tactics from Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” the Obama Administration has successfully kept Congress reeling from one radical maneuver after another. Everything he has done has weakened America and the Progressive Republicans in power have failed to produce an answer or verbalize their agenda. So far, the Republican agenda has been to slowly react to the Obama Alinsky Agenda and make fun of real leaders like Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Trey Gowdy.

IS EVERYTHING OBAMA DOES LEADING TO MARTIAL LAW?

This Scenario came from a Black Colonel who graduated from West Point and is a strong Christian. His identity must be protected.

He said, most branches of the service routinely engage in war “games” and come up with strategies and tactics on how to handle every type of military conflict and scenario that can be imagined. One of the big new battle scenarios being actively discussed in the military recently is how to handle civil unrest and fighting in U.S. cities.

What will the Army do if called in to fight armed civilians in the streets of the United States? How will that urban warfare be conducted? Will troops be able to fire upon other American citizens when the troops take an oath to protect American citizens?

He said many in the military are discussing the very real possibility that Obama will attempt to stay in office beyond two terms. It is being speculated that Obama will do this by declaring a state of martial law. The easiest way to declare martial law is when there is massive civil unrest and riots throughout the U.S. Thus, it is believed that Obama, and his regime, will intentionally create a situation of massive civil unrest.

Some believe he has already started to implement that strategy by forcing Obamacare on everyone (when the populace did not ask for it and less than 300 people in power voted for it). Perhaps the Obama Administration is not too concerned over the totally dysfunctional Obamacare website and the additional fact that millions will be dropped from their existing insurance policies which they already had and liked.

The Obama Administration may not care if getting health care becomes more difficult and more expensive because it is all leading toward civil unrest. It is believed by some that Obamacare will only get worse and worse, and then in 2 to 3 years when people have a very difficult time getting medical treatment for themselves or their loved ones, people will become enraged.

Moreover, it is being speculated that around the same time when the frustration levels over Obamacare are hitting a critical point in 2 to 3 years, there will be a “glitch” in the welfare payment (or EBT) payment system. The tens of millions who rely on EBT handouts to sustain themselves will be cut off. The overwhelming majority of the EBT recipients are Black.

The Obama regime will then blame the “glitch” on the Republicans, i.e., Republicans froze government spending which “forced” Obama to suspend EBT payments. (Obama will intentionally drive spending up and up uncontrolled knowing full well that one day the Republicans will be backed into a corner and finally vote for a freeze in spending.)

Obama will create heightened racial tension by telling everyone that the White Republicans are racially motivated and did this to hurt the Black community. This manufactured racial tension, combined with growing tensions over the then-collapsing medical coverage due to Obamacare, will result in race wars and civil unrest. People will take to the streets.

Once the race wars, civil unrest, and violence becomes pervasive throughout the U.S., Obama will declare martial law and take over. Elections can, and will, be postponed under martial law.

This possibility is clearly being analyzed and discussed inside the military because such a martial law strategy is nothing new. Tyrannical and dictatorial leaders in the past have done the martial law strategy many times.

He noted that dictators such as Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler did basically the identical thing. He went on to say that one of the most recent examples of this strategy was when Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines from 1972-1981 due to civil unrest. The Philippines had democratic elections up until that time.

When martial law was declared, the Philippine constitution was suspended, its Congress dissolved, all elections were suspended, and Marcos remained in power for years beyond his elected term. The alleged “terrorist bombings” that occurred in the Philippines, which lead to Marcos declaring martial law, have always been questioned and never proven to be the acts of actual terrorists. Note: I was in the Philippines the night Marcos declared victory in the 1969 election and witnessed some of the violence just three years before Marcos declared martial law.

Many believe this is the real reason behind the purgings of military generals. The older members of the military, and especially its generals and leaders, tend to be more conservative and they believe in the Constitution—and following the Constitution.

Thus, a tyrant and dictator needs to get rid of these military leaders before a state of martial law is declared if the rising dictator wants the military to follow along and do what the dictator says. Due to the loss of many experienced military leaders the past few years, the military is now being run and guided more and more by younger, inexperienced leaders.

The type who won’t really know what to do if martial law was declared. Moreover, he noted that there is a growing mindset throughout the military now that every soldier needs to keep quiet and just follow along with what Obama says and wants to do or you will be fired and your military career ruined.

Everything points to the U.S. Martial Law scenario. All federal agencies including Social Security, are arming themselves to the hilt. The military is giving armored vehicles to civilian police departments. While Obama promised to bring America together, he has in fact become the Agitator in Chief. Obama does nothing to strengthen America and everything he does is designed to weaken our country, our military, our economy and our standing in the world. I do not believe Barack Obama will give up power to Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Allen West or anybody else. I am convinced he will hold on to power through any means available. What are your thoughts?